with a bang
by apriiil
Summary: There's things he wants to do, yet there's not enough time to do them. [Angst Week 2016. Bonus Day: Dearly Departed.]


_Just CoLu angst for the sake of it. Again, reposting this just because._

* * *

Erik always thought that there was plenty of time for him to do the things he wanted to do, right up until there wasn't.

All of a sudden, all those years he'd had ahead of him, the ones that he looked forward to like any slightly normal person, were gone. All of them, reduced to nothing.

If he was lucky, he'd have one left. That was what he'd been told, anyway. One measly year if he was _lucky_ , which he rarely was.

There was essentially nothing left for him anymore, and he knew it. Had accepted it, too, just a little reluctantly of course because it wasn't like he wanted to be leaving that world without accomplishing anything worthwhile. He'd always joked about how when the time came, he'd go with a bang – walking towards that famed light with his middle fingers up and telling the world to go fuck itself. He wasn't supposed to be going so miserably.

But that was what he was doing then, anyway. He was telling the world to go fuck itself because it was fucking him over like it always did, and he was mad at it. And a little mad at himself, too, but mostly mad at the world.

He was supposed to have more time so he could do all the things he'd always said he'd get around to doing one day. He was supposed to be able to go and settle down and do the entire family thing. Well, okay, that one had always been a _maybe_ , but knowing that he couldn't do that seemed to hurt where his heart supposedly should be, and Erik didn't like feelings. Feelings made him feel all too human, and he was just coming to realise how depressing that really was.

Humans always had an expiry date, and his was just so much sooner than he'd always thought.

But…

Erik wasn't going to let that stop him. No, he couldn't. He wasn't just going to sit around for the next few months, waiting for the inevitable to happen. He wasn't going to be miserable. He wasn't going to be bitter.

No, he wanted to go out with a bang.

He still wanted to be telling the world to go fuck itself when he went out.

Because that was just the kind of person he was.

There was still one tiny problem, though, and that was the fact that there were still things he wanted to do. So many things. And there was one thing in particular he was sure as hell going to do before he died. He had to. He had already spent _years_ putting it off, just because it involved his feelings, and those, he still didn't like.

But regardless, he found himself at a certain blonde's apartment in the middle of the night, because he was done staring up at the ceiling and feeling sorry for himself. He had a life to try and live in what little time he had left, and he had very important things to do in that time.

Like tell someone he loves them.

And it was almost cliché, too. But he had to do it. He'd been friends with her for far too long, and he'd tried so hard for so many years to just ignore it because she was _her_ , and he was _him_ and she was his best friend in the whole, horrible, wide world. He couldn't live without her. And now, he couldn't live without her knowing how he felt.

So when Lucy opened her door to him that night, smiling tiredly and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Cobra couldn't help himself by stepping forward, taking her face between his hands, and kissing her.

And she was surprised at first, and his lips on hers seemed to drown out the sound she made, but then that didn't matter, because she'd only been waiting for him to do that for more fingers than she had on one hand in years. So all she did was let her fingers run through the maroon coloured strands and kissed him back, only trying her best to put five years' worth longing into one single moment.

And then Cobra was telling her he loved her, and hearing the words actually coming from his mouth only made him want to cringe, but he suppressed that urge because he couldn't do it right then. But maybe what surprised him the most right then was that she said it back before a single heartbeat had passed, and after that, he knew he had to tell her the rest of it.

So he told her the rest of it.

The rest where they couldn't actually be together like they both apparently wanted, because there wasn't enough time. They couldn't do the things they both wanted to go together, because he wouldn't be there to do them with her.

But then Lucy was telling Erik to go fuck himself, too, like she did on a near daily basis, and was telling _him_ to tell the world to go fuck itself again, like he already was. Because screw the lack of time. She was there then, and so was he, and that was what mattered. Why couldn't they just live in the moment while they could? What was really stopping them from just enjoying themselves together in what time they had?

Nothing. That was Lucy's argument, anyway, and Cobra could never really say she was wrong, because she never really was.

So he let her drag her around the country and even the world so he could see as much as he could and do as much as he could before his time was up. She put her life on hold for him and she wouldn't have had it any other way. Everything he'd ever wanted to do, they did together. Even the crazy things, they'd done, just because they could. They made memories together, too – tons of them. Even if he wouldn't have them for long, Lucy would, and that…

That mattered to him, even if he didn't want to admit it.

And even when they reached the last stretch and he got worse – sicker, weaker, just like they all said he would when it got closer to the end – she was still there. And at the very least, Erik got to say that he was happy with the life he'd lived. He wished he could've done more, and maybe Lucy wished that more than he did, but he was still glad with what he'd done in the end.

He was glad with what he'd accomplished, but somewhere deep down, Cobra knew that it was just that one thing he was proud of – the one he'd put off for so long. The rest didn't really matter.

And even if it hadn't really been in the way he'd expected, where he'd wanted to be going out and telling the world to go fuck itself for fucking him over, he still went out with a bang in his own way.

And even on the darkest days and coldest nights, that brought a smile to Lucy's face.


End file.
